WORLD MAP

Cryptids around the world

Every culture has its hidden animals. Pick a continent or country to see the creatures reported there, the places they’re seen and the latest news.

Frame 352 of the 1967 Patterson–Gimlin film: a dark, hairy upright figure walking across a creek bed and looking toward the camera108North AmericaFrom the Pacific Northwest’s forests to the lakes of Canada and the deserts of Mexico. Artist’s drawing of the classic Puerto Rican chupacabra: an upright gray creature with big eyes and spines along its back5Central America & the CaribbeanIsland legends, jungle wildmen and the birthplace of the chupacabra. Artist’s drawing of the classic Puerto Rican chupacabra: an upright gray creature with big eyes and spines along its back6South AmericaAmazon giants, Andean lakes and Patagonian monsters. The 1934 “Surgeon’s Photograph”: a dark head and neck rising from rippled water – a hoax later shown to be a model on a toy submarine.24EuropeLake monsters, phantom black dogs, big cats and the beasts of old folklore. Black-and-white photograph of a large footprint in snow beside an ice axe, taken by Eric Shipton on the Menlung Glacier in 195119Asia & the Middle EastThe Yeti of the Himalaya, Japan’s yōkai and the wildmen of Central Asia. The Likouala-aux-Herbes River near Epena, in the swamp-forest region where Mokele-mbembe is said to live13AfricaLiving dinosaurs of the Congo Basin, river serpents and bush legends. Black-and-white photograph of a pair of thylacines in an enclosure at the Beaumaris Zoo, Hobart, around 19109OceaniaYowies and bunyips, the thylacine and the taniwha.

North America

United States103 cryptidsCanada11 cryptidsMexico5 cryptids

Central America & the Caribbean

Nicaragua4 cryptidsGuatemala3 cryptidsHonduras3 cryptidsEl Salvador3 cryptidsCosta Rica3 cryptidsPuerto Rico2 cryptids

South America

Venezuela2 cryptidsBrazil2 cryptidsArgentina2 cryptidsChile2 cryptids

Europe

England7 cryptidsScotland6 cryptidsIreland3 cryptidsWales2 cryptidsFrance2 cryptidsNorway2 cryptidsIceland2 cryptidsRussia2 cryptidsSwitzerland1 cryptidSweden1 cryptid

Asia & the Middle East

Japan6 cryptidsChina5 cryptidsIndonesia4 cryptidsBhutan2 cryptidsMalaysia2 cryptidsMongolia2 cryptidsIndia1 cryptidNepal1 cryptidVietnam1 cryptid

Africa

Tanzania3 cryptidsDR Congo3 cryptidsRepublic of the Congo3 cryptidsCameroon3 cryptidsKenya2 cryptidsSouth Africa2 cryptidsZambia1 cryptid

Oceania

Australia5 cryptidsNew Zealand3 cryptidsPapua New Guinea1 cryptid

Famous cryptids beyond the USA

The 1934 “Surgeon’s Photograph”: a dark head and neck rising from rippled water – a hoax later shown to be a model on a toy submarine. LAKE & SEA MONSTER · 1933

Loch Ness Monster

Loch Ness, near Inverness, Scottish Highlands

Scotland’s long-necked lake monster, reported in Loch Ness since 1933 – the world’s most famous cryptid, most searched-for loch and best-known hoax.

WIDELY REPORTED Black-and-white photograph of a large footprint in snow beside an ice axe, taken by Eric Shipton on the Menlung Glacier in 1951 HOMINID · 1921

Yeti

Khumbu and the high Himalaya, Nepal

The Himalaya’s “Abominable Snowman”: a Sherpa legend made global by footprint photos, monastery relics and DNA studies that kept finding bears.

WIDELY REPORTED Green fibreglass Ogopogo statue with humped coils on the Kelowna waterfront LAKE & SEA MONSTER · Pre-colonial

Ogopogo

Okanagan Lake, British Columbia

Canada’s most famous lake monster: a long, humped serpent said to swim Okanagan Lake, rooted in the Syilx being nx̌aʔx̌ʔitkʷ, spirit of the lake.

WIDELY REPORTED HOMINID · Pre-colonial

Yowie

Forests of the Great Dividing Range, eastern Australia

Australia’s hairy “bush man”: a tall, ape-like figure of eastern forests, rooted in Aboriginal hairy-man stories and colonial-era newspaper tales.

WIDELY REPORTED LAKE & SEA MONSTER · Pre-colonial

Bunyip

Billabongs, swamps and rivers of south-eastern Australia

The water spirit of Aboriginal tradition said to lurk in billabongs and swamps – turned by colonial newspapers into Australia’s first great monster story.

FOLKLORE The Likouala-aux-Herbes River near Epena, in the swamp-forest region where Mokele-mbembe is said to live REPTILIAN · 1913

Mokele-mbembe

Likouala swamps and Lake Télé, Republic of the Congo

A long-necked, elephant-sized river beast of Congo Basin lore, hunted since 1980 by expeditions hoping to find a living sauropod in the Likouala swamps.

REGIONAL LEGEND Black-and-white photograph of a pair of thylacines in an enclosure at the Beaumaris Zoo, Hobart, around 1910 DOGMAN & CANINE · 1936

Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine)

Tasmania’s north-west and south-west wilderness

A striped, dog-like marsupial officially extinct since the last one died in a Hobart zoo in 1936 – yet over a thousand people say they have seen one since.

EXTINCT ANIMAL? Detail of a bestiary drawing by Katsushika Hokusai showing a kappa LAKE & SEA MONSTER · 1444

Kappa

Rivers, ponds and marshes throughout Japan

Japan’s child-sized river imp, with a water-filled dish on its head and a love of cucumbers and sumo – once feared for drownings, now a beloved mascot.

FOLKLORE Sand dunes of Khongoryn Els in Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park, southern Mongolia OTHER · 1922

Mongolian Death Worm

Southern and western Gobi Desert, Mongolia

A blood-red, sausage-shaped worm said to lurk beneath the Gobi’s dunes and kill with venom or an electric jolt – Mongolia’s most famous desert legend.

REGIONAL LEGEND Title page of Abraham Fleming’s 1577 pamphlet A Straunge and Terrible Wunder, with a woodcut of a black dog DOGMAN & CANINE · 1577

Black Shuck

Bungay and Blythburgh, Suffolk, and the coasts of East Anglia

East Anglia’s ghostly black hound, blamed for the deadly church storm of August 1577 in Bungay and Blythburgh and still said to roam the coast.

REGIONAL LEGEND Brown Willy seen from Rough Tor – the highest point of Bodmin Moor and of Cornwall BIG CAT · 1978

Beast of Bodmin Moor

Bodmin Moor, Cornwall

A big black cat said to stalk Cornwall’s Bodmin Moor, investigated by the government in 1995 – days before a leopard skull turned up in a river.

WIDELY REPORTED HOMINID · 1876

Almas

Altai Mountains and Gobi margins of Mongolia

Central Asia’s “wild man”: a hairy, human-like figure reported from the Altai and Gobi to the Pamirs and Caucasus, once hailed as a surviving Neanderthal.

REGIONAL LEGEND

World cryptid news